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51
Sanitary Congress at Folkestone.
(Special Report presented to the Council on October 27th, 1904.)
The Annual Congress of the Royal Institute of Public Health
was held at Folkestone, under the Presidency of the Rt. Hon. the
Earl of Radnor, from July 21st to July 20th, 1904. The work
of the Congress was carried on under 7 Sections, as follows :—
(a) Preventive Medicine and Vital Statistics.
(b) Comparative Pathology, Bacteriology and Chemistry.
(c) Engineering and Building Construction.
(d) Child Study and School Health.
(e) Ladies.
(f) Tropical Medicine.
(g) Military Hygiene.
Clean Milk Supply.
In the section of Preventive Medicine, the chief interest
centred round the discussion on "A Clean Milk Supply." It
was pointed out that the primary essential in the production of
clean milk supplies was the education of the farmer and the
cowman—the conditions to-day of some of the country cowsheds
being a national disgrace. In this connection the Local Government
Board was taken to task by some of the speakers for not
enforcing more strictly the Dairies, Cowsheds and Milkshops
Orders of 1885-1886. Public opinion should be brought to bear
upon the subject of a pure milk supply by such being demanded,
and its supply would naturally follow in time. Let the public
decline to buy milk unless it was guaranteed to come from clean
cows, to have been kept under clean conditions, and to have
been milked by clean men and women, and Sanitary Authorities
and Medical Officers of Health would be greatly helped in their
endeavours to secure clean milk supplies. Cleanliness in
collection, storage and distribution of the milk was essential, as
also were more satisfactory and more rapid means of transit of
milk from the country districts into towns.
The distribution and sale of humanised and sterilised milk
naturally came in for a large share of attention. Full particulars